Category: Live and Virtual

Hailing from his family’s farm in southwestern Ontario, Benjamin Dakota Rogers grew up building greenhouses, growing vegetables, and living off the land. “Growing up my family drove a big VW bus. We listened to a lot of fiddle music, going from festival to festival,” he says. “These days I live in one of the barns, tap trees, and make music.” Benjamin finds a way to match his instrument to the guttural twang of the voice. “I inherited my great-grandfather’s violin when I was young,” he says. “So I grew up playing that.” After a few years on six-string, Rogers began tuning his tenor guitar like a fiddle. “Tenors are neat because they were only popular for a short time in the 1920s. I’ve played about two-hundred shows on mine. It’s beautiful, and unreliable,” he laughs. Benjamin has shared stages in the U.S. with the likes of Molly Tuttle, Shovels & Rope, and The Milk Carton Kids. He comes to Michigan with a new album, “Paint Horse.”